UN, EU, Russia back Obama's Mideast `vision'

Obama met Friday at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Before his departure from Israel, Netanyahu dismissed Obama's position on the pre-1967 borders as "indefensible," saying it would leave major Jewish settlements outside Israel.

Egypt's U.N. Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz said Obama's support for the pre-1967 war borders will help the Palestinians win U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state.

He linked Obama's backing for the borders to the Palestinian campaign to get two-thirds of the U.N. General Assembly - at least 128 of its 192 member states - to recognize Palestine as a state by September. Palestine is already recognized by 112 countries and he predicted the Palestinians would get support from at least 130 nations in the next few months.

But for a newly created Palestine to become a member of the United Nations, Abdelaziz said, it must get support from the Security Council, where the United States, Israel's closest ally, has veto power.

"If they put a resolution in the General Assembly requesting the Security Council to recognize the state of Palestine and this resolution passes ... with 170 or 180 votes, I'm sure that this is going to put a lot of moral pressure on the Security Council, and particularly on the United States, in order not to veto," Abdelaziz told a group of reporters on Thursday.

He said he didn't know whether the Palestinians will push for a resolution in September because Palestinian leaders are still discussing what to do.

In his speech Thursday, Obama rejected efforts by the Palestinians to unilaterally take their bid for statehood to the U.N., saying, "Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state."